readers

Monday, July 16, 2012

524. The Bruery and Cigar City Marrón Acidifié

sour faces speak

oaked fruit babbles on the tongue

silent malt below

The above is Jeffrey’s haiku for this beer, which is something we’ve been sitting on for a while so that it had a chance to mature in the bottle. My love of the Bruery is well-documented, so I won’t bore you all with the details. I’m like the Matt Strickland of the Midwest. If you’re desperate to read more, I’m pretty certain you’re all clever enough to navigate the site and find the other eight beers. If not, then the terrorists have already won.

Marrón Acidifié pours a dark Belgian candy brown with plenty of orange and cinnamon colors, and has the creamy tan head that hangs around longer than I anticipated it would. And the nose—that came pouring out of the bottle before the beer even hit the glass, and set my mouth to watering immediately. Vinegar sour and sharp tartness. Both were upfront and almost aggressive, but at the same time rounded with a pleasant depth and complexity, with red wine and dark fruit notes pushing through in the back. As the beer warmed, aromas both brightened and lightened, and a touch of malt sweetness emerged. The puckering began with the first sip: a bright lactic bite before moving into the acetic vinegar sourness of the middle. Along with the lactic zing in the front, there was Belgian candy and dark fruit coupled with some light malt doughiness, while the middle had both sweet and sour playing together at the same time (and playing well, might I add). Fruit returned in the finish—fig and plum, mainly—along with a tannic bite from the oak, ending with a sour tartness featuring a residual tang that left an impression of malt and bread crust/toast. There was also a slight chalky/mineral flavor via the sourness in the end that created a perception of grittiness on the tongue, although there was no real substance to it. The body is medium, lightened by both the tartness and vinegar sourness, making the beer bright on the tongue and clean on the palate, even with the only moderate, creamy carbonation. Certainly, a fantastic beer—I had small circles of sweat on my cheeks almost from the first sip, and the beer settled and opened quite pleasantly as it warmed. Even the dregs from the bottom of the bottle were delicious—oaky and tannic with chewy malt and balsamic vinegar. Oh, and here’s my haiku:

rush of sour, then sweet

biting with fruit and dark oak

rosettes bloom on cheeks

From the bottle: “For our first collaboration beer we are lucky to partner with a brewery a country apart, but on a similar path, Cigar City Brewing out of Tampa, Florida. Marrón Acidifié is suitable for aging up to five years when cellared properly.”

From the Bruery website: “Marrón Acidifié: Imperial Oud Bruin. For our first collaboration beer we are lucky to partner with a brewery a country apart, but on a similar path, Cigar City Brewing out of Tampa, Florida. Geographically a country apart but following similar paths, we felt an immediate connection with Joey, Wayne and the crew. We’re both young breweries, founded and staffed by homebrewers, whose use interesting ingredients and techniques to make unique, full-flavored beers. A recipe was created over pints at Falling Rock Tap House during GABF 2009 and Wayne came out to help brew shortly after. Over a year in barrels has left this dark sour layered with notes of cranberry, tropical fruits, leather and aged balsamic vinegar, balanced with wood tannins and roasted malt. Raise a glass and toast to the success of fledgling breweries across this great nation!”

ABV: 8.5%

IBU: 15

We also tried a bottle of each of the starters I made for the Wild Yeast Lambic on 10/7/2011 to see where the larger batches might be going (I bottled 2 twelve ounce bottles of each starter when I drained the liquid off of each to toss the yeast into the wort). The results: the blueberry yeast version is still not that good, but better than it was 10 months ago, while the raspberry yeast version is still pucker-y sour deliciousness. We also checked the gravity of each, with the blueberry coming in at 1.006 and the raspberry at 1.050. So the blueberry is certainly fermented, while the raspberry is some form of lactobacillus (or maybe pediococcus). So now I’ll be planning the next step for each, which will probably involve racking the blueberry onto something that will go with the earthy and slightly burnt flavors, and finding a yeast to toss into the raspberry—something that can handle the low ph—although I will be racking the beer (or whatever the hell you would call an almost year old wort with lactobacillus) off the yeast cake first, as I most certainly plan on using the raspberry yeast cake again to see what it will become.